Computers Help Design Microchips

GAINESVILLE — University of Florida researchers are exploring the use of computer simulators to design new microchips.

Jerry Fossum, who heads the research program, said Monday that the savings in time and money will help the U.S. electronics industry to compete more effectively with the Japanese.

''Japan is beating us on cost,'' he said. ''It takes six months to a year to fabricate and test a new chip. We'd like to cut the time and the cost by testing the new designs on a computer simulator before they're manufactured.'' Jeff Coriale, a program manager for Semiconductor Research Corporation, said using improved computer design tools for circuits ''could cut down that time to a fifth or better -- and that's probably on the conservative side.''

Testing designs on computer simulators would halve the development cost, which runs in the range of $10 to $20 million, he said.

The Semiconductor Research Corporation is made up of more than 40 companies that banded together to develop the scientific base of their industry and to help train college students to work in the industry, Coriale said.

The corporation is funding the UF researchers' development of software that will design faster, closer-packed microchips.

The sophisticated circuits are part of a competitive technology called ''very large scale integration,'' or VLSI, that is opening new doors to supercomputers, artificial intelligence and computer speech. VLSI refers to integrated circuits containing more than 10,000 transistors on a quarter-inch silicon chip.